Washington (CNN) – Hey! Republicans and Democrats agreed on something! Woo hoo… er, whoa. What is this deal, exactly? The is written in Washington-speak. To make it easier, here’s our user-friendly version of highlights and what they mean.

The money: The deal sets the government’s spending level at $1.012 trillion for the current fiscal year and $1.014 trillion for next year. So what? Keep reading.

Budget cuts: Here’s the first reason the deal matters. Those spending levels would eliminate $45 billion in forced budget cuts (yes, “sequester”) set to hit in January and another $18 billion set to hit in 2015. It would not eliminate all of the cuts, but would erase a large chunk of them.

Wait, so does it raise spending?: Hang with us here. Simple question, not-so-simple answer. The deal would raise one kind of spending – discretionary spending – for the next two years. That’s the type of spending Congress votes on each year. It funds many government agencies. But the deal more than offsets that two-year spending increase with long-term cuts to a different type of spending – mandatory spending, or spending that happens automatically under the law. So over 10 years, the deal saves money, its writers say.

Airline fees: If you plan to take a trip , buy your tickets now and save a few bucks. The Ryan-Murray agreement would raise the TSA security charge to $5.60 for any one-way trip. So $11.20 round trip. Currently, the so-called “9-11 fee” is $2.50 for a nonstop flight and $5 for travel that involves connecting flights. The deal would charge the same $5.60 regardless of whether the flight plan was nonstop or not.

Federal workers: This was one of the most difficult pieces of the deal to work out. In the end, the deal requires that newly hired federal workers pay more into their pension fund. The change means that new federal workers would see a 1.3% pay cut.

The troops: Military retirees under the age of 62 will face slimmer cost-of-living increases in their retirement pay. This is phased in over three years, but ultimately cost-of-living adjustments, or COLA, will be cut by 1%.

Contractor pay: Bad news for contractors who charge the government $488,000 or more for their salaries. The deal caps what the government will pay for a contractor’s salary at $487,000.

More budget cuts, later: The deal may roll back much of the sequester during the next two years, but it extends forced budget cuts for two new years on the back end, into 2023 and 2024.

Oddball proposals: The deal contains more than a dozen other assorted provisions, a kind of nickle-by-nickle, rag-tag collection. Here are some that especially stand out.

The Death Master File: Cue the Star Wars’ Imperial March music here. Turns out the Department of Commerce keeps something called the “Death Master File,” which lists people who have died and their Social Security numbers. The budget deal would block fraud (checks going to dead people, essentially) by limiting access to the death list and raising penalties for misuse.

Prisoners shouldn’t get unemployment checks: The deal aims to block prisoners from getting government checks the law bans, like unemployment benefits, by increasing the coordination of prisoner lists.

Student loan companies: This isn’t sexy, but it is worth $3 billion, according to House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s office. The deal would take away automatic payment for non-profit student loan servicers, replacing it with payment that Congress determines yearly. Told you it wasn’t sexy.

Pension guarantees: And, it gets even more wonky – but also more lucrative. The federal government runs a program that guarantees the pensions for companies that participate, sensibly called the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The deal saves an estimated $7.9 billion by asking the companies to pay more money for that guarantee.

Gas and oil: The deal would make two changes that energy companies won’t like. It ends a government research program that Ryan’s office says was for private energy companies. It also ends a provision that allowed energy companies to stash funds in government accounts and earn interest above market rates.

On the surface this seems to be a good deal. I admittedly haven't delved into the details on it, but from a high level this appears to be the type of thing government officials are supposed to hammer out: Neither side gets everything they want, but the Republicans get some things they want, and the Democrats gets some things they want. The fringe on both sides is probably unhappy about it, and that shows me that it's probably a good compromise.

_________________"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." - John Adams

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December 11th, 2013, 1:06 pm

TheRealWags

Megatron

Joined: December 31st, 2004, 9:55 amPosts: 12534

Re: Budget deal reached, in principle

Touchdown Jesus wrote:

On the surface this seems to be a good deal. I admittedly haven't delved into the details on it, but from a high level this appears to be the type of thing government officials are supposed to hammer out: Neither side gets everything they want, but the Republicans get some things they want, and the Democrats gets some things they want. The fringe on both sides is probably unhappy about it, and that shows me that it's probably a good compromise.

Pretty much my thinking as well.

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December 11th, 2013, 1:30 pm

Pablo

RIP Killer

Joined: August 6th, 2004, 9:21 amPosts: 10024Location: Dallas

Re: Budget deal reached, in principle

Quote:

So over 10 years, the deal saves money, its writers say.

I've always found these federal budgets a joke. They cost us money (increase discretionary spending) the short run, but save us money (forced budget cuts) in the long run. Funny thing is, we have to redo the short term budgets for future years and all that money we are supposed to save never seems to happen. We will see if the budget cuts actually hit in 2023 and 2024 - lol, just like the budgets cuts from 2003/04 are hitting now - oh wait we just somehow raised spending again.

Coke/Pepsi are great at spending now and somehow offsetting that with cuts to future budgets that future Coke/Pepsi can raise short term spending again and continue to push the IOUs to even more future generations. Brilliant. Who continues to vote for these @$$ clowns?

Did you know that our constitution does not call for a balanced budget? No proposed amendment to balance a budget has ever been approved for the constitution. Most states are required to pass balanced budgets, not so for the Feds. The result is deficit spending (we are great at this) and the national debt (which we are able to grow at an incredible rate). I'm mean what good is a debt ceiling if you can't continuously raise it? Thank you Coke and Pepsi - you guys rock!

But all those budget fixing acts passed, from the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act (1985) to the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 to The Budget Control Act of 2011 have done what?

Here's what the Reps/Dems have done for the last dozen years (debt as a % of GDP)...

I've always found these federal budgets a joke. They cost us money (increase discretionary spending) the short run, but save us money (forced budget cuts) in the long run. Funny thing is, we have to redo the short term budgets for future years and all that money we are supposed to save never seems to happen. We will see if the budget cuts actually hit in 2023 and 2024 - lol, just like the budgets cuts from 2003/04 are hitting now - oh wait we just somehow raised spending again.

Coke/Pepsi are great at spending now and somehow offsetting that with cuts to future budgets that future Coke/Pepsi can raise short term spending again and continue to push the IOUs to even more future generations. Brilliant. Who continues to vote for these @$$ clowns?

Did you know that our constitution does not call for a balanced budget? No proposed amendment to balance a budget has ever been approved for the constitution. Most states are required to pass balanced budgets, not so for the Feds. The result is deficit spending (we are great at this) and the national debt (which we are able to grow at an incredible rate). I'm mean what good is a debt ceiling if you can't continuously raise it? Thank you Coke and Pepsi - you guys rock!

But all those budget fixing acts passed, from the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act (1985) to the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 to The Budget Control Act of 2011 have done what?

Here's what the Reps/Dems have done for the last dozen years (debt as a % of GDP)...

If you think this is sustainable, by all means keep voting Coke/Pepsi...

I couldnt agree more.

When I read this part :

Quote:

Wait, so does it raise spending?: Hang with us here. Simple question, not-so-simple answer. The deal would raise one kind of spending – discretionary spending – for the next two years. That’s the type of spending Congress votes on each year. It funds many government agencies. But the deal more than offsets that two-year spending increase with long-term cuts to a different type of spending – mandatory spending, or spending that happens automatically under the law. So over 10 years, the deal saves money, its writers say.

i nearly spit my pop out of my mouth laughing! WHO ACTUALLY BELIEVES THIS CRAP?!?! the government and cutting the budget is very similar to an alcoholic quitting booze. They'll get right on it...tomorrow.

yeah right!

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December 11th, 2013, 6:39 pm

Blueskies

QB Coach - Brian Callahan

Joined: September 13th, 2007, 12:43 pmPosts: 3121

Re: Budget deal reached, in principle

If it was up to me, I would cut every department's budget by 50% overnight. At least two-thirds of it is pure waste anyway.

According to one of the sections I read, some of the "mandatory" spending cuts don't begin until 2022! Wasn't the sequester cuts supposed to be permanent? And what will the Congress of 2022 say about the matter? They'll just increase spending like this Congress is doing. Never mind agreements that were reached 10 years ago, let alone almost 2 years ago (sequester). The federal government is a joke.

I know how to fix this crap, but heaven forbid that a government employee must contribute to their pension benefits or must rely upon Medicare (like the rest of us) instead of their premium health insurance plans in retirement. That's a fate worse than death to those parasites. Gut the public sector unions.

Instead of spending millions on encouraging people to enroll for government benefits, spend that millions on detecting and prosecuting the fraud, waste, and abuse within the system.

Eliminate or consolidate duplicative agencies. Obamacare itself created over 100 useless agencies all by itself. Weren't there already several hundred that they could have merged into instead? Keep in mind that high corporate salaries are bad in the private sector, but those "earned" in the public sector are good. Yea, right. (sarcasm alert). And those in charge of the federal agencies make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

According to one of the sections I read, some of the "mandatory" spending cuts don't begin until 2022! Wasn't the sequester cuts supposed to be permanent? And what will the Congress of 2022 say about the matter? They'll just increase spending like this Congress is doing. Never mind agreements that were reached 10 years ago, let alone almost 2 years ago (sequester). The federal government is a joke.

I know how to fix this crap, but heaven forbid that a government employee must contribute to their pension benefits or must rely upon Medicare (like the rest of us) instead of their premium health insurance plans in retirement. That's a fate worse than death to those parasites. Gut the public sector unions.

Instead of spending millions on encouraging people to enroll for government benefits, spend that millions on detecting and prosecuting the fraud, waste, and abuse within the system.

Eliminate or consolidate duplicative agencies. Obamacare itself created over 100 useless agencies all by itself. Weren't there already several hundred that they could have merged into instead? Keep in mind that high corporate salaries are bad in the private sector, but those "earned" in the public sector are good. Yea, right. (sarcasm alert). And those in charge of the federal agencies make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How about a penny plan then? Just eliminate one penny out of every dollar from every government agency every year until the budget is balanced. What's so difficult about that?

Instead of having your annual conference in Maui, how about Washington DC? Instead of the tax payers fully funding government pensions, how about the employees paying 5% instead of 2%? How about consolidating duplicative federal agencies so we only have 2,000 instead of 10,000?